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An internal EA email, released last night as part of a court filing, appears to indicate that EA and former Infinity Ward boss Vince Zampella worked together to delay the release of the Modern Warfare 2: Stimulus Pack in order to give DICE’s Bad Company 2 a better chance of sales success.
The emails were given to Activision by EA as a part of the discovery process.
“A couple months ago, I asked Vince to hold back their map pack until after we launched. (He owes me one,),” reads the email written by Lincoln Hershberger, senior director of global marketing at EA’s DICE. “Given that they’ve already made a billion, he was cool with that, obviously (Activision CEO) Kotick took it as being belligerent.”
The email was sent to a number of EA execs, including Frank Gibeau, head of EA Games.
EA Spokesman Jeff Brown has, however, claimed the email was an obvious joke.
“This was obviously sarcasm,” said Brown. “It’s clear from the email this was a joke and they never spoke. We explained this to lawyers at Activision – who apparently don’t have much of a sense of humour.”
Bobby Schwartz, the attorney representing Jason West and Vince Zampella, has also defended the email, accusing Activision of being “consumed with ill-will towards” his clients.
“Activision’s claims of such things as ‘tortious interference’ are not merely unfounded, they are undermined by the very documents attached to and quoted in its cross-complaint. The contact and communications that Jason and Vince had with EA were entirely lawful. If Activision’s cross-complaint proves anything, it is that Activision is consumed with ill-will towards plaintiffs,” he said. “It is bad enough that Activision refused to honour its contract with them and pay them the millions of dollars they and the other Infinity Ward employees earned from their years of work in developing Modern Warfare 2. Now Activision wants to ruin their ability to earn a living anywhere else. When the trial comes, we will make sure the jury appreciates what Activision is attempting to do.”
He continued: “As to the allegation that Vince deliberately delayed a map pack for MW2 at the request of one of EA’s developers, the allegation is completely false, and at trial it will be clear that this is a desperate attempt by Activision to find some basis to justify its misconduct and refusal to pay what it owes, not only to Jason and Vince, but to all of the other Infinity Ward employees.”
Via Kotaku
It doesn’t look good for EA and Zampella, but it’s very difficult to determine of the email was written in all seriousness or as a joke. Hershberger’s comment that Zampella had already made billions does, however, seem to carry a humorous tone.
What do you think?
